Notre Dame in for a 1-7 start?

Tuesday

One in a series of stories previewing the 2007 college football season.

One and seven.

That is how at least one football prognosticator believes Notre Dame’s football team will start the season.

One win. Seven losses.

That, after 19 wins in two seasons and appearances in the Fiesta and Sugar bowls, both Bowl Championship Series contests.

Could departed quarterback Brady Quinn have meant that much to the Fighting Irish?

Or does the seer believe head coach Charlie Weis, the engineer of the turnaround and recruiter supreme, means that little?

Yes, the Irish haven’t won a bowl game since the 1993 season, when Lou Holtz was head coach, and haven’t beaten archrival Southern California since Bob Davie was the boss, but it’s not as if Weis didn’t coax success out of scores of players who were too often unsuccessful under Tyrone Willingham. And now, with Quinn having bade his farewell to one lake effect burg for another -- he’s a Cleveland Brown these days -- Weis will start to see his recruits come to the fore.

For the latter reason alone, the prediction appears extreme in the extreme, but Weis, while not mentioning it directly, clearly is using it (and similar predictions of a woeful start) as a motivating tool.

“My expectations are always high,” Weis said. “They’re never low. To be honest, I thought we have a chance to win the national championship (in 2005). And we weren’t far off from having a chance.

“I’m more motivated this year than any other year. The first year, (outside) expectations were so low. And it was easy to win the team over because they had had only modest success. It was the opposite last year.

“Now it presents a whole different set of circumstances. We have more players competing for jobs than any year previous. Before, there was a drastic drop-off in talent. Now, we have to sift through to see who’ll start.”

In other words, Weis expects his team -- populated more and more by his recruits -- to come up big a third straight season.

Replacing Quinn is of the utmost importance, and Weis has gone about it with the secrecy reserved for the combination to the Pentagon’s nuclear codes. It will be either junior Evan Sharpley, sophomore Demetrius Jones or freshman Jimmy Clausen.

Practice started Aug. 6. Weis wanted the starter determined by no later than the 20th, so specifics for the game plan against Georgia Tech, against whom the Irish open their 119th season Saturday, could be concentrated upon.

Who won the battle? Only Weis, his fellow coaches, including new quarterbacks coach Ron Powlus, and the players know. So far, there hasn’t been a leak from any of the above.

At first blush, it would seem Jones, the Morgan Park High School product who can both run and throw, would have the most difficult time winning the job, because his skill set is different from Quinn, the prototypical drop-back pro-style quarterback. However, just because Weis used Quinn the same way he used Tom Brady at New England when Weis was the offensive coordinator of the Patriots, that doesn’t make Jones less likely to win the job, any more than it makes Clausen, the pure passer who lit up prep scoreboards in Southern California, a lock to fast track his way to starting. (Sharpley falls in between in what he can do, Weis said.)

“I learned a long time ago you don’t set your system around what you do,” Weis explained. “You fit it around what your quarterback can do. The first two weeks, you install everything. The third week (which began the 20th), you cut it way down.”

As for alternating between quarterbacks, Weis hasn’t ruled it out completely, but added, “I’ve always worked under the guise of, if you have two quarterbacks, you don’t have one.”

Whoever it is to take the first snap against the Yellow Jackets will go into the huddle with just three returning starters alongside, and just one, tight end John Carlson, in a skill position.

That, and the need to replace six departed starters on defense, plus the usual punishing early schedule, is a big reason the Irish are expected to stumble at the start.

Along with Quinn, the notable absence on offense is at halfback, where Darius Walker is gone and Travis Thomas, after a year at linebacker, is back on offense. Thomas ran for 248 yards backing up Walker in 2005. Thomas also scored two touchdowns in a handful of backfield appearances last season, but this is the first time the fifth-year senior will be the lead back.

The Irish are inexperienced at wide receiver, with David Grimes, last year’s fifth-leading pass catcher, the leading returning receiver (Carlson, at tight end, caught 47 passes to Grimes’ 26). The quarterback won’t have Jeff Samardzija, Rhema McKnight or Walker in his sights. Instead, there’s a smallish group Weis calls “the Smurfs.”

“I like our wide receivers; I get to see ’em all the time, so I think I have a more objective opinion,” said Weis, who generally has practices closed to reporters for all but 20 minutes. “But you don’t know until you do it under the lights.”

Weis is also high on his offensive line, where only center John Sullivan and right tackle Sam Young have starting experience.

The Irish have a new defensive coordinator, Corwin Brown replacing the ousted Rick Minter. Brown has five starters back, six if cornerback Ambrose Wooden, a regular two years ago but a backup in 2006, is counted.

Weis said one reason for the change was that he didn’t always understand the scheme Minter was using, but that Brown, with whom he’s worked before, uses one he knows. More likely, it was the 0-2 records against both Southern California and bowl teams, plus the 85 points allowed in last year’s final two games, that triggered the switch to Brown and a 3-4 front.

“It’s a personnel group that lets you have a lot of versatility,” Weis said. “We’ll have a pass rush off the edge we haven’t had the first two years.”

It had better come quickly. After Georgia Tech, the Irish go on the road to play Penn State and Michigan in consecutive weeks. A 1-7 start is far-fetched, but 1-2, which would quickly kill a chance for a championship, is well within the realm of possibility.

More college football news is at www.dailysouthtown.com/sports.

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.